1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a safety support for a vehicle wheel, that is a support used to support at least partially a tire tread in conditions of low or zero pressure.
2. Description of Related Art
The present invention more particularly relates to a safety support of the type comprising a ring which is intended to be mounted on a rim of a wheel inside a tire and which is subdivided into at least two arced segments having ends which face one another, and several linking means which each connect two ends facing one another of two segments of the ring, at least one of the linking means comprising at least one male element at an end of one segment and at least one female portion at an end of another segment and suitable for receiving the male element via a relative movement of the two segments one relative to the other in the circumferential direction of the ring. A known safety support of this type is for example described in document EP-A-0 798 141.
Relative to the safety supports whose ring is made in a single piece, the safety supports of the segmented ring type offer the advantage of being able to be mounted on a rim with a normal mounting well, therefore not requiring a special rim geometry (of the PAX type, for example) or a two-part rim, such as that shown in FIG. 3 of document EP-A-0 834 407.
On the other hand, the safety supports of the segmented ring type have the disadvantage that their mounting on a wheel rim and their removal relative to the wheel rim are relatively complicated and take a long time to implement. In addition, the known safety supports with segmented ring require a special toolage for their mounting/removal relative to the rim, in particular for the tightening and loosening of the ring segments.
Therefore the present invention aims to provide a safety support of the segmented ring type which can be mounted onto a rim with a usual mounting well and removed from the rim more easily and more rapidly than the known safety supports of the segmented ring type.